Crucial Details of a California Constitutional Convention

June 29, 2009

With California's fiscal woes mounting, and the government in
Sacramento seemingly frozen in place, a constitutional convention has
been proposed as a way to fix the Golden State's deeply entrenched
structural problems. But as more people have begun considering this
option, several important questions have arisen about some of the
details of the Convention, specifically: 1) how would the delegates to
the Convention be chosen; 2) how would a Convention of delegates chosen
by random selection function, and how would the delegates be educated;
3) what would be the scope of the issues taken up by the Convention,
and 4) how would the public monitor and even participate in providing
input to the Convention. These sorts of details are extremely
important. If ever there was a case where "the devil is in the
details," this is certainly one of them.

There are three basic ways to select delegates to such a body: appoint
them, elect them, or randomly select them. Each of these methods has
their pros and cons, and the more one considers this question it
becomes clear that there is no perfect method. But there is perhaps a
‘least worst' method. That method may be the random selection method,
which means that the details of this method become all the more
important. In particular, an intensive education process for the
delegates will be necessary, as well as proper design of that education
period to ensure the education is thorough and unbiased.

The mandate and scope of the Convention also are crucial, with a
consensus growing that the scope should be limited to issues related to
governance, elections and budget reform.

This memo is designed to fill in important details to a constitutional convention on all these matters and more.